2025 COFFA Americorps Update by Sarsa Buck
Greetings and Happy New Year! As we welcome 2025, Colorado Farm and Food Alliance continues with many inspiring projects. If you are not already familiar with one of them, my name is Sarsa Buck, serving Colorado Farm and Food Alliance through AmeriCorps. My service term has been extended through December 2025.
One of the primary endeavors we are working on is an in-depth interviewing process of some of the many independent farmers and producers in the region. The primary intent of this process is to distill statistical information and inspire storytelling to promote and cultivate sustainable rural resilience for our community. We hope to find creative ways to continue to support regenerative agriculture through possible funding and other gap-filling roles or projects that we can glean from this information. If you or someone you know is interested in participating in our interviewing process, please fill out this form or contact me at sarsa@colofarmfood.org.
We have completed about a third of our preexisting list of producers so far, and it has been enlightening. We have also heard some inspiring philosophies and histories. This has inspired us to host a fireside storytelling series featuring a few of our local agriculturalists at our gardens and classroom at Arbol Farm this spring. Dates are coming soon!
Some of the leading themes from the interviews thus far have been challenges around financial setbacks, complications with grant writing, establishing sustainable ongoing funding for regenerative projects, and finding time-saving, less-labor-intensive modalities.
Another important issue that I am inspired to bring to the table is around farmer and rural behavioral health, which is how someone feels about themselves and their situation and the strategies they have available to help address the challenges and pressures that they face. Farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, according to The National Rural Health Association. There are many reasons for this crisis, including some of the issues we identified in our interviews. I am currently working with a few organizations to help educate our team and find ways to present this topic to the community.
We want to normalize the conversation about this important issue and to be able to refer people to supportive resources. Please stay tuned for updates, and in the meantime, you can find more information and resources here. Please also think about your choices of where and from whom you buy your food. Our farmers are a vital force in our community, so let’s support our local growers as much as we can!
My other project areas of interest are our increasing concern around water resources and management, riparian and soil health, and getting our community farm kicking and abundant for the upcoming growing season. I am so blessed to serve Colorado Farm and Food Alliance and this dedicated resilient community.
